How to Deal With Challenging Vendors

For an even wider in-home spread, drop all your mail locally; that will give you a one- to four-week spread on national arrivals, depending on how heavy national mail volume is when you drop.

Design(er) Issues

The freelance designer had a fine portfolio and good references and seemed to clearly understand every detail during our hand-off meeting. But a week passed, then 10 days, and when the cataloger finally received the first proofs—just four pages out of a 32-page book—the results looked amateurish. And so much time had been lost that the cataloger couldn’t switch designers and still get to the color house in time to meet the print date.